Page 72 of Lightning in a Mason Jar
No Trespassing.
Private Property.
No River Access.
Ping. Ping. Ping.Defying authority with rocks. She had good aim.
And why wouldn’t she? Her mother didn’t seem to be a trustworthy authority figure as far as I could tell.
“Hey there,” I called down the length of the dock.
The girl bolted to her feet, even shorter than I’d expected. She couldn’t have been more than six years old, if that. Still, she wore decades of jaded attitude layered over hungry wariness. “I ain’t doing nothing. Just waitin’ on my mama.”
“I know. My husband and I own the gas station. I’m just checking on you. I thought you might like a pack of peanut butter crackers and a bottle of water.”
I kept those on hand for when Russell grew overtired. Once upon a time, I would have packed them in case I needed to run. I didn’t worry about that so much anymore. Peace had found me before Phillip could.
The girl stared at the pack of crackers like it was a whole bag of Halloween candy but picked at a scab on her knee instead. “If you try to take me, I’m gonna yell fire.”
“Why not shout stranger danger?”
“People don’t always care when you say that.”
I gave her a simple nod, my throat a little tight. “Staying safe is important. If you squint you can see the back of your mom’s head from here, so I’m sure she would hear you if you yelled.” I lied about that last part, but it didn’t feel right to speak disrespectfully about her mother—her very neglectful mother. I shouldn’t judge. The woman might have been doing her best, and since we were working to keep her around, I would have the opportunity to learn more about this Yvonne, as Russell had called her. “What’s your name?”
“Bailey Rae. Mama said Baileys is her favorite thing to drink, and Rae was her daddy’s name.” She scratched the scab until a trickle of blood leaked.
The way she kept scraping at the wound reminded me of a nineteen-year-old who’d once told me cutting brought her relief from stress.
“Okay, well, I think your mom might be staying here for a while.” I opened the packet of crackers and passed one over. Then took one for myself too, trying again to set her at ease. “Your car’s gonna takea while to fix, and since your mom’s already looking for a job, maybe she’ll take one here.”
Grunting, Bailey Rae ignored the cracker and me. She pinged a stone off a tire swing dangling from a branch over the still water.
I finished off my cracker before saying, “Bent Oak is a great place to live.”
Bailey Rae shot a skeptical look my way before tossing another rock toward the swing, sending it sailing through the opening this time to plop in the river.
But I wasn’t that easily dissuaded. “Don’t let that ‘No Trespassing’ sign worry you. Since the gas station belongs to my husband and me, we let youth groups from Scouts and church go swimming and fishing.”
“I can’t swim, and I don’t know how to fish.” The girl hurled another rock with unerring aim at a slow-moving johnboat.
Time to try a different approach before some fisherman pulled a firearm out of his tackle box. “I bet you can’t hit that cypress knee over there.”
Her little jaw thrust out, and she nailed that jutting root dead-on.
“Nice.” I applauded, while dusting crumbs from my hands. “I bet you’d be killer with a slingshot.”
“Why do you care?” Bailey Rae turned the full power of her flinty green eyes on me. “My mom’s not gonna stay here. She never does. You’re gonna wake up one day and we’ll be gone, with all your crackers and the money outta your wallet.”
As if to emphasize her point, she snatched up the remaining crackers and stuffed them into her mouth one after another. Her cheeks puffed wide as she chewed.
I made a mental note to hide my purse and lock the cash drawer. “Well, if you’ll be leaving, can I have one of those rocks to remember you by? I keep a jar in the window of my kitchen. It’s full of stones from special times in my life that I want to remember.”
She gulped down the food and swiped the crumbs from her mouth with the back of her wrist. “Why would you want to remember me?”
It was all I could manage not to hug her. But she still radiated so much defensiveness, I figured affection would make her run rather than risk letting the kindness bring tears. Anger was easier than vulnerability.
So I settled for a safer way of reaching out. “Because you have the best aim I’ve ever seen. With that great arm of yours, I bet you’d be a whiz at casting a line.”
